Why have people (Atheists) Chosen not to believe in God? Does this give freedom to live life without becoming answerable to anyone?

Many people are atheists because of the way they were brought up or educated, or because they have simply adopted the beliefs of the culture in which they grew up. So someone raised in Communist China is likely to have no belief in God because the education system and culture make being an atheist the natural thing to do.

"Other people are atheists because they just feel that atheism is right." It is on this premise that i am asking this question.

Jul 1 2012:
Lorenzo, for what I know most people that were born within a religious tradition start to stop believing and are called atheists by those that still believe all non sense that is preached.
People that stop believing choose to know or not know and live a quest for real answers.

As long as you believe you will never know and follow where ever they lead you. Like a parrot you repeat the things they tell you, so to question your believe is the first step towards knowledge.

Knowledge will bring freedom which brings appreciation and responsibility. You will no longer care for others out of fear for punishment but you will care because you understand the oneness of life and the interdependence of everything living. Knowledge raises all the good things because it comes from love instead of fear.

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Jul 4 2012:
I think he means all beliefs crumble if you question until you reveal assumptions built on approximations based on imperfect senses and a our limited capacity to comprehend reality and truth etc

Jul 2 2012:
So, Mark. Do you believe the only knowable Truth is that one's self exists, as Prof. Moreno suggests? I have always thought a Solopsist would be very terse in the conversation game, what with not knowing if other people are real or not. I on;y ask to add to my understanding of why some people choose to not believe in God.

Jul 2 2012:
Maybe Descartes couldn't take it any further, but we can :)
Let's use caps lock in writing 'me' or 'self, ME, SELF is me/self in quantum superposition. The pattern ' me VS not me' makes itself redundant.
There is no 'other human/mind that is not me, it's all me thinking the same thought differently. In this case ME is always true and me is always untrue.
Does it make any sense ? :)

Jul 2 2012:
Natasha, I get exactly what your saying and i don't totally disagree, but existing as a wave function or a particle doesn't change the fact of existence as a separate being. If we all shared one massive galactic hippocampus this might be true. Even if our brains are in superposition this doesn't change the fact that they still exist apart from the universe in this current state.

An interesting question : If 2 identical twins were separately placed in a controlled, exactly similar environment, would they emerge to be the same exact person?

No it doesn't , the motion is spiral and this way of thinking brings more clarity to the mind than linear logic, you seem to practice.
". Ive never heard anybody who recalled an experience of cosmic consciousness "
As a model :Jesus, Buddha.. they were real. And there were/are a lot of individuals who can experience the state of extended consciousness.
Actually all great geniuses in recorded human history experienced that kind of state , it inspires scientific and artistic insight, it gives the sense of intuitive certainty that usually accompanies deep insight and described as the state of 'all-at-onceness'.
Are you real ? Of course you are, and 'you' are unreal also .
What makes you 'you' ?
Try to feel comfortable squeezed between two opposites 'yes' and 'no', in a tiny space in between you'll find something infinitely large, you may call it truth.
If you manage, QM will be for you to grasp :)
It's what i seem to' know', it doesn't mean that it is true :)
Cheers !

Edward, sorry to disturb you , but you are the only proud possessor of the reply button in the whole wold :)

Jul 3 2012:
Hi Mark !
" No need to invoke quantum anything."
It's true for you, for me ' quantum something ' makes things clearer. 'The way 'is not the matter of choice even, simply it goes this or that way. Does 'way' make any difference if can easily find this :
"And what is thought of as "me" and "not me" were never really separate patterns anyway, that's why they are redundant."
in my own mind ? :)
And this:" Creator and creation could never be separate"
Exactly because of that I don't believe in Holy Other Deity, whatever the name... For me God is real, but not directly observable force carrier of the observable forces. Our ancestors chose to call it God, so be it. Again , you may say , that there is no need to invoke Holy Doctrine, - maybe, but I find a lot of ' matches' there too.
And talking about beliefs, maybe we don't have anything but beliefs. What we think we know, is our coherent belief system, individual or collective; scientific or religious.
The left cerebral hemisphere is largely responsible for creating belief systems in order to maintain a sense of 'understaning'. New experiences get folded into the pre-existing belief system. When they don't fit, they are simply denied. The right hemisphere ( the intuitive part ) is constantly challenging the status quo. When the discrepancies become too large, it forces a revision of the 'picture'. However, when our beliefs are too strong, the right hemisphere may not succeed.
So it is not that important how right/wrong our beliefs/disbeliefs are but how strong they are and how emotionally we are attached to them , we'd better hold them lightly and be ready to let them go.

Jul 3 2012:
Mark, sorry for hijacking you reply button. : )
Brian !
It's is a kind of a 'thought experiment'; a good deal of imagination should be involved and a personal experience if you are lucky to have such.The very word 'existance' is challenged here, in a way, yes , it means ' not to be. But there is nothing scary about it, it has nothing to do with demise :)
The plot wouldn't change whether we took 2 identical twins or you and me in ' exactly different environment ', for it goes beyond illusion of separation.
"one massive galactic hippocampus " and " brains in superposition" description is bound to matter that's why it doesn't fit to the experiment. Big ME deals with a state of consciousness which has no extendness in time and space. But we can experience it momentarily and it's enough to colour the thinking. You can fragment it through an analytic view, which is what we have trained our cerebral cortex to do, or you can identify with the formal and functional essence of the experience and intuitively place it in its cosmic context. That takes a reeducation of the senses for current state of human mind…
I don't remember where i took it but I like this lapidary dictum:
"we search everywhere the Unconditional, and we always find only things"
Can we see not seeing 'things' ?
I am not sure you have the context in which my response can make any sense to you, but anyway, thanks for your interest:)
Have a nice day !

Jul 5 2012:
I wonder if any of "this" is true, if you are real, If I'm real and what that even means. However, that line of thought seems to bring you in endless circles.

I have to say, being able to experience undivided consciousness doesn't seem to be at all possible. Ive never heard anybody who recalled an experience of cosmic consciousness be able to describe their own brain chemistry, this aspect seems to be based outside the consciousness, which in and of itself would make the experience not undivided consciousness.

I have to wonder if this idea of "consciousness of which has no extended time and space" is another construct of the illusion, an aspect that seems to serve certain individuals better,in their path to replicate life (Just to clarify when I say replicate life I mean find inner peace, make for a better world, and allow for human species to flourish, not just the passing of ones genes). Based on what you said in your response, consciousness is both divided and undivided simultaneously. I wanted to note that I saw mark make an excellent point about this line of thought. Its still based on opposites, which in our previous correspondence(schrodingers cat and collapse of the wave function discussion) I proclaimed this trend to be nothing more than how humans have been built to view the world.

Jul 3 2012:
Mark !
We are not afraid of not knowing, we are curious creatures and we want to know. Knowing is not a destination but the way ; on this way we shape/reshape extend our beliefs ( in the best case scenario ) and the abyss of unknown grows exponentially. And I agree with you, here we should be ready to face a revelation that we actually don't know anything and try to feel comfortable with it and keep on going. Why ? I don't know, I love the way. :)
You seem to invest heavily into true/untrue option. I don't think Truth is something that exists in complete perfect form, what if it is unfolding, extending by virtue of true/untrue dance ? In a sense, Truth is perfectly balanced ' 0 ' , drop anything into it and it is fractured and branches into opposites ' true' and 'untrue'. The balance is broken and still preserved.
And God is a symbol,( it doesn't imply that it is not real.) symbolism is a language of imagination intuition. Imagination retains symbols narratives, not facts. The symbol 'God' invokes in you something you are not even conscious of. You need tons of words to explain what you've got through this symbol.
You read poetry, don't you ? Cross out ' God' everywhere you meet and replace it with " personified creator ' , you will kill the verse. Not only because the rhyme and rhythm would be missing, but mainly because there would be no Symbol to 'tune' you properly to get the message . I could be wrong here ( sure i am ! ), but it works for me .
I try not to talk about God and Holy Doctrine with strong believers / non believers, they are pretty much the same, two sides of the same coin. I would emphasise the word 'strong' here :)
Take care !

I just said "I think," I did not mean to say that I was sure you actually were making a solipsist point. It just seemed so, and thus I gave the idea to Edward for him to consider the possibility. After all, your argument seemed leading that way.

Jul 1 2012:
Frans and Mark,
I totally agree...questioning beliefs is a step toward knowledge, which creates freedom, which brings appreciation and responsibility. I also agree that it is much more beneficial to the individual, as well as all of humankind, to function based on love, rather than fear.

This is one reason I choose not to believe in a god. God(s) and religion(s) seem to be fear based and controlling, even though we are told they are a god(s) of love. This has always seemed contradictory to me, even as a small child, when I began to question religious teachings.

I agree Frans, that to care because we recognize the oneness, interdependence and interconnectedness of life, is more beneficial and genuinely loving.

Jun 23 2012:
I will leave this for a scientist to describe how evidence is used to draw conclusions about hypotheses. In scientific method, data are weighed to consider two kinds of errors, conventionally called the Type 1 and the Type 2. The Type 1 error is the chance of rejecting the hypothesis of non-existence (the null hypothesis) when it is in fact true. The Type 2 error is accepting the hypothesis of existence when it is false.
Not all atheists are scientists, of course, and have their different ways of synthesizing data to draw conclusions.

Jun 24 2012:
Ed, Of course your God is not like us, but God's ways are not man's ways and many people believe natural law is God's law. What the Bible is talking about are governmental laws. No man made the law of nature. Or science for that matter. A huge part of science is the work of discovery of what already exists. The other part is creating something new that hasn't existed before.

Jun 25 2012:
I was replying only to the original question of why some people "choose not to believe in God"- the lack of scientific evidence. I was not suggesting that everyone must decide this question on the basis of scientific reasoning or evidence.

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Jul 4 2012:
Hi, Mark !
It's funny, really, reading your posts I had the uncanny sense of deja vu, I have been there before, " I know the room, I walked this floor " :)
" The true reality of which the one we experience is a shadow."
It's old age Plato Forms, is it not ? Plus a lot of stuff I have in my head too.So I am on board with this vision.
But...
Correct me if I am wrong, you think that we have no access to truth, just the knowing that it is not possible to know it is the only truth we have .
You can define Truth as opposite to False, but it leaves you empty and confused. I have the feeling that Truth can't be known but can be experienced, momentarily, like a gift.
Maybe it sounds corny, sorry for that. Quantum match : you are not in the process you are process. Mystic metaphor : The knower is the known, the seer is the seen.
I believe it, because it is reinforced with my own experience. Truth is not only undivided within itself, it is not separated from Love and Beauty. Am I preaching ?:) You know, the words are so overabused, we'd better play jazz , verbalizing is tough. :)
I am in favour of holographic image, it makes quantum entanglement a real feature of the universe and proves that we are not totally separated from truth, though what you said about " phenomenal world" is also true. .Mandelbrot set makes our umbilical cord with the Truth almost palpable. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ma6cV6fw24&feature=related

Biblical truth : " so above as below " You know what ' aha moment ' is, it can be a glimpse of truth for that very moment, reasonable explanation are later comers. The mind is just a bridge between shapeless and form. Form is never true for nothing has absolute meaning without a whole, it's knowing about not knowing. Again wave/particle duality explains a lot, you can find a verbal match : " Who speaks doesn't know , who knows doesn't speak''

Jul 4 2012:
It's my response to yours, I've used the reply button that works, it has little to do with a joke, though why not ? :)
And "being in the moment' is a great 'thing' it allows experiencing truth without attachment to imaginary/ false separated self. Eckhart Tolle tries to make it a practical tool, not an elite practice of the few, and i think he is doing a great job.
OK, I think I have a lot of opinions today, sorry.
It's my luck i have no time to continue.:)
Have a nice day !

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Jul 4 2012:
Hi, Mark !
Maybe i am wrong, but there is nothing abstract in Plato ideal forms , they stands for 'isness' of observable forms, there is nothing external , everything is here, but we need something more subtle than biological eyes to see it.

".. it's just that the world isn't the way we experience it "

You preach the converted :).
Though it depends what you mean by 'experience ', it's like consciousness, nobody knows what it is , but who can deny different levels of consciousness ? Flower is conscious where the sun is, we can be conscious of a lot of things or the most advanced can be conscious of no things, of 'no thing, 'nothing'. At the point of 'nothing' experience and consciousness is the same ' thing' . OK, it's just an idea, that came to me right now, while printing. God forbid, i don't insist :)

And there is a point here : "The only way to get it "to the masses" is by turning it into something it's not. "
Generally it's true, maybe it's always true , i don't know. And I don't practice it, I can't go 'in the moment ' at will, maybe i am too cerebral for this, though I think i am not. Actually, I don't practice anything but life, it can give you spontaneous openings, but it's another story :)

Thanks for the conversation !

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Jul 4 2012:
Thanks for your response, I appreciate such conversations, it's a dialogue a kind of attempt to think together on line :)
Yes, cultivating ... whatever is cultivated may lead to opposite direction, I guess it's an inner dynamics of any process. Still I am in favour of two-opposites-making-the-whole picture.:) If it is totally irrelevant, what is the balance ?
Everything is conditioned ? Yes, it's a human condition, it's tough, but I like it. Actually i don't have a choice, it's a kind of freedom :)
I think, being in the moment or meditation doesn't obliterate consciousness but highlights it. The thinking, reasoning is secondary in understanding things or 'knowledge' , they are the tool , not the guide.
The whole is prior to a part , seeing, experiencing the whole or I don't know what, I don't have a name for it, you start to find matches everywhere and they are everywhere in different contexts , seemingly not related , but you start to see the bigger picture and , yes it is a 'cerebral' joy ! Faculty of discernment alone makes one just a walking collection of other people's thoughts, maybe wise, but dead.
I've just have seen the video you posted. Yes , I think it's the way it is. I came up with this picture some time ago. In plain language : there is nothing really exists but relationships. I am vigilante, not to let it turn into a strong belief, but no input has shaken it so far. :)
But Alan Watts' story is incomplete, and not quite accurate. It is not the way people become atheist and there is a gap at the very beginning of the story, that's why it sounds as something new . People not always felt isolated or aliens.Take the average medieval man , he didn't question the priority of the Whole he was a part of. The change in perception started somewhere 4, 5 hundreds years ago, with scientific advances, I guess.It is not science which is to blame, but the attitudes it generated.

Jul 4 2012:
cont.
The part gained a kind of independent existence, the doctrine of objectivity got the status of Divinity, a part was studied in isolation from the whole, a man became a machine, assembled from different parts and so it began...And here we are with the urgent necessity to come back to the whole. And science with its quantum revelations is an agent that can give us a new understanding of eternal truths: what comes as one goes out as many and remains one. Nothing has independent existence from everything else. What for us is quantum entanglement or Torsion field , for tribal shaman was simply magic.
I am reminded of a T.S Eliot verse :
...and the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time.
But we are not going round on circles, maybe it's a spiral motion, what we have always known, now we have.So there is an advantage in the crises we are in, actually, we are not in crises, we are crises.
It's a long talk, everything is not simply connected, everything is just one story, and there is nothing off topic in any topic.
But it's pretty late here... please don't take me wrong, i don't state anything, though it may look like a statement, but it is not :)

Thanks !

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I'm afraid ' thinking on line together ' doesn't work, alas, in a way it shouldn't . We can't think together without silence ,which is understood, and spontaneity of immediate responses. Still it's an exchange of opinions, I would not call it ' throwing mental bullshit out the window ' though, at least it was not my intention :) Anyway thanks for the attempt., I appreciate it . At least, we were not debating !
I find debates totally useless, they generate a lot of heat and no light. I tried to balance this 'debate' thing with a new genre :)
And talking about balance, could i ask you to ponder this zen koan :

Shuzan held out his short staff and said, "If you call this a short staff, you oppose its reality. If you do not call it a short staff, you ignore the fact. Now what do you wish to call this?"

Jun 22 2012:
I would actually argue that many people choose the path of atheism, because it holds you accountable. We do it, not because it is easy, but because it is hard. Atheism, forces you to be held accountable to yourself. It forces you to be responsible for your own actions.

No Devil coerced you... No god can forgive you. You are responsible for every good deed you have ever done, and every one of your smallest transgressions against others. When your tax money is used to murder civilians, that is your fault, and there is no excuse.

Atheists often find much sympathy with the Buddhist faith. The concept that life is full of suffering, but that suffering is designed to teach you compassion. The idea that suffering exists because of ignorance, and thus knowledge is the path to overcome suffering. Atheists must learn to see their failures as a learning experience or else be bogged down in guilt, shame, and misery.

Confession, prayer, and other direct forms of communication with "god", seem easy by comparisson. I choose to believe that I am alone, and at best I have 50 years left to make the most beautiful mark I can on this world. Even if there is a god, why would he/she/it want me to live any other way?

Jun 26 2012:
I agree obey, I have never subscribed to the idea of past lives. Really I subscribe only to the simplest principles, because they remind me of an emotional extension of the scientific method.

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Jun 22 2012:
Atheists often have sympathy for the buddhist path... That is all.

"And yet no God will punish you. One is free to be as amoral as they may wish."

This shows a deep misunderstanding of human nature, and the physical world. When you do drugs... You get a hangover, or you commit acts you regret. When you treat people in your lives poorly, they treat you poorly.

When this is the only life you have, and you make horrible choices, you will spend an eternity in misery. If you abuse your body, your relationships, and your love, it will all fail you, and on your death bed you will have spent every moment you believe exists in pain. There is nothing more terrifying.

We don't need a god to get punished. There might be one... Amorallity is its own punishment. The means are the end.

Using tax money to murder civilians of a different religion, is par for the course for almost every religion that has ever existed, most atheists are against it.

Buddhism is less reliant on the afterlife than you think. HH suggests that anyone who accepts the four noble truths is a buddhist. Many atheists do not accept the four noble truths, however I do, so in speaking for myself I can say that I have strong buddhist sympathies.

Very few atheists are gnostic btw. I would never say "I know there is no god"... I simply suggest it doesn't matter if there is a god, and specific beliefs in one, that cause an us and them mentallity... appear unhealthy.

Jun 26 2012:
His Holiness The Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatsu, one of the best writers in modern religious history, in my humble opinion. I would actually consider it a bit disrespectful to refer to him as HH, if he didn't have a twitter account that used it... hehe.

I don't consider myself a Buddhist, partially because of the often strict belief in the afterlife. Honestly, it's a bit more than that though... I believe that there is a fundamental flaw in the philosophy, and I actually think Tenzin himself realizes it, and this may be why he refuses to discuss finding a new Lama. Church is basically a financial scam, and enlightenment is actually an easy state to reach, it just isn't as glorious as one would have hoped.

Enlightenment, is the point at which, you realize, that kharma works instantly, all around us. This is the problem with religion, it creates an us and them mentallity.

You suggest "This suffering isn't always the amount it should be" and "My nature is different from yours". You are simply wrong, demonstrably. Less than 1% of human beings are psycopaths... All the rest of us, feel bad, the instant we do something that hurts someone else.

We all feel bad when, in the moment, based on poor information or a bad state of mind, we do something that hurts someone accidentally.

When we see a man his arm broken in a jiu jitsu match, we all clutch our arms as if we were just injured.

Everyone has the exact same nature as you. Everyone feels the exact amount of suffering they should.

Again, there is the exception of psycopaths, but that's what we have law for, law punishes them. Reality punishes the rest of us. Law is of course an instrument of reality, so you could even reason that they get exactly what they deserve, but still they don't feel it the same way unfortunately. You just have to learn to get over that.

This is the problem I have with most religions. It sounds to me, like you actually refuse to believe in reality, simply to justify belief in god.

Jun 28 2012:
I've read some of his stuff and there was some good stuff. Glad he has stepped down from political leadership. I disagree with theocracies in principle.

I studied a bit about Buddhism, living in a Buddhist country and some bits resonated. You know life is suffering and taking the middle road etc.There is some good understanding if the human condition with many of the axial age sages.

And we have 2-3,000 years more human development on our side, science, the enlightenment, Hume, Darwin, and we don't necessarily have to believe in a hidden world of invisible agency.

I still meditate, just without superimposing the supernatural. I guess we can pick out the good bits and just accept the supernatural and bronze age cultural aspects as a product of their time before science and contraception.

Jul 2 2012:
Well where to start for old earth evidence
Light- by working out the density of the sun and it's gravitational strength we've worked out that it takes 1 million years for light from the centre of the sun to reach the outside.
Staying on light, the distance between galaxies, calculated in light years, and given the speed of light, it takes billions of years for the light from the most distant galaxies to reach us.
Staying with galaxies, if you rewind the expansion of the universe and decelerate it at a constant rate you get a singularity forming 13.72 billion years ago.
Radiometric dating
Evolution
Fossils
Geological explanations for separation of Pangea, distribution of animals and occurrence of the same animals on completely different continents, geological reasons for how mountains are formed
Blackholes, supernovas,
Rock layers, k-t boundary
Ice cores Archaeology I could go on, and what do you have? O well there is an invisible god who we'll never see till we die and basically he cursed our race for wanting to have knowledge and so he gave us pain and then he flooded the world but dont worry he floated all animals on a boat which can't physically work or hold the amount of animals it required. But dont worry about that it's all a matter of faith.
What a pathetic and disgusting argument, honestly the aboriginal explanation is even more plausible that a giant snake slithered and created all the rivers, welcome to the 21st century Peter where the most educated humans on this planet would laugh the second someone mentioned young eart and know what's worse? The fact that the most educated theologians of Christianity accept evolution and old earth and the big bang. It's time to catch up Peter, and I don't care if Im sounding rude but we need to get rid of stupid beliefs, they are of no benefit to society and make you look like an idiot And threaten to drag the future generations into a regress of knowledge if religious fundamentalists had their way. I won't have it.

Jul 3 2012:
For example, religious fundamentalists took power of the Middle East nations and they went form the centre of knowledge generation to what we see today. Not a nice prospect, but that's what we would get if we allow religious fundamentalists to take hold of our nations. I won't have it either.

Jul 4 2012:
You won't find any argument from me but there are ways to twist some observations to fit even a YEC view for some of these and others are ignored or seen as discredited. Then they have things like a constant growth rate seeing 7 Billion people and extrapolate back to 6000 years ago etc etc

With a powerful deity nearly anything is possible to fit what we see, even if not the simplest explanation.

E.g. in regards to the time it takes light to reach us from other galaxies, some claim this is an illusion in that god must have created all the stars and galaxies closer together and then moved them far away so there was light on route from 6000 years ago,

Jul 4 2012:
well would you trust anyone who twists evidence to get a conclusion which requires more evidence?
to this I think we'd both answer no, and this is why I don't listen to any creationist evidence usually (and to back me up in case anyone thinks I plug my ears to creationist "evidence" I've just about heard and read it all so I assume any further "revelations will still be bogus) unless I fool myself into thinking they might once have got actual evidence then later realizing in the article it asserts god somewhere and I lose a little more faith in society. .

Jul 4 2012:
Maybe Obey, but such a claim is easily discredited. All it takes is a bit of research and you get how ridiculous the population growth is. Example, if so, then why are we not swimming in Bacteria instead of having 7 billion humans? Mice anyone? Those two show that growth rates cannot be constant. Also, extrapolating back in history shows that with the creationist assumption there was not enough people to build the pyramids of Egypt. Tons more. Sure, believers find a way to still fit the model (well, it's just an approximation, et cetera). They will use the same argument again. To me, that's mere dishonesty. To themselves and to the world, because they were shown that the argument is ridiculous, yet they keep at it ... anyway, it is the same with everything creationism has to offer: cherry-picked and misrepresented "evidence" with self-delusion and dishonesty.

We may think we discredit a claim, but others don't. They change the story to fit the evidence and still fit their core beliefs.Like the X Files people want to believe. Their core fath based beliefs are the last thing to be given up.

It may be the same process we all use in regards to our core beliefs, it's just that some core beliefs are based on more reliable sources than others.

Jul 5 2012:
It IS amazing Obey, that no matter what information is offered, religious fundamentalists/extremists/enthusiastic believers will change the story, twist, misrepresent, misinterpret and manipulate information, even from their own holy books, to justify and argue for beliefs that do not make sense, and harm people physically and emotionally.

That is probably the biggest underlying reason for my rejection of a god and religion. Throughout history, the manipulation has been, and continues to be apparent. If an individual chooses to limit him/herself in that way, fine. The practice, however, has adversly impacted many people in our world.

Jul 2 2012:
"Why have people (Atheists) Chosen not to believe in God?"

There is a bit of a flaw in your question which I can't answer without correcting. People don't choose to _not_ believe in something. You cannot choose to not believe in computers. If there is enough evidence of computers existing, you believe in them existing. The threshold may be different between people, as some are less skeptical and scientific minded than others, but the beliefs themselves are not a choice.

That said, an atheist finds no compelling reason to believe in gods, the same way you find no compelling reason to believe in all of the others gods ever created but your favorite one (which you named 'God'). An atheist believes in gods the same way you believe in unicorns, the tooth fairy and leprechauns. There is simply no evidence in these things beyond a story in a book.

So, if you really wish to understand the mind of an atheist, recall why you do not believe in unicorns or mermaids, even though there are thousands of stories based on them, sculptures of them, drawings of them and even people who truly believe they exist, no matter how much you try and reason with them. Then you will realize atheists simply use the same standards for all other claims with no evidence, even if they wish one were true.

Jul 2 2012:
For me understanding is important. We have the universe, we have circumstances of life, and we are living being interdependent on each other and on the world as a whole. This is interactive. Love, compassion, anger, hatred and so on require, practically, at least one individual other than myself. I can pray the whole of my life to love and to be loved; but to love, I have to love; and to be loved, I have to let someone love me.

It is true that we come from diverse cultural, religious, and educational backgrounds which can result in what one may call "civilization of clashes" rather than "clash of civilizations." But it only requires careful reflection and understanding that the stranger i meet on the street is also perceiving me in his/her ways just as I'm perceiving him/her in my own ways. If there would be anyone responsible for any clash, it would be two of us. Because we had the freedom to perceive the otherwise, to change our minds.

Also, mind is the forerunner of our actions. If we see ourselves as cognitive human beings, as open to endless impingement of sensory data, we can "see" how seeing someone, for instance, we generate feelings such as love, fear, etc. There is a complex psychological process involved in it. We just need to be able to observe it or, to use meditation terms, to be mindful or to be aware of our physical and mental activities. This is hard at first, but when we understand the nature of our own mind, it gives us inner peace. When we have peace within, there is is peace without. When we have peace within, we also have true happiness, and that happiness liberates us from fear. Questions of existence and non-existence do not seem to matter. We have a life, we live happily by helping others also to be happy.
I don't know if it is matter of 'right" not to believe in God, but the way I see the world as interactive and being interdependently weaved by our actions and perceptions do not require a God. We answer to ourselves and to each other.

Jul 2 2012:
Very wisely stated Teja:>)
This issue can be resolved with understanding, respect, acceptance and a genuine intent and effort to have compassion/empathy for one another. All of these qualities are embraced with unconditional love. One does not have to be a theist, or atheist to be unconditionally loving. It is a choice we can make in any moment of the life experience. It requires, as you insightfully say..."careful reflection". If one needs to get "stuck" with his/her individual beliefs to the point of not reflecting, it is not as useful as having an open heart and mind to all people. We ALWAYS have the choice to accept each other....or not.

I totally agree..."When we have peace within, there is peace without. When we have peace within, we also have true happiness, and that happiness liberates us from fear. Questions of existence and non-existence do not seem to matter. We have a life, we live happily by helping others also to be happy.
I don't know if it is matter of 'right" not to believe in God, but the way I see the world as interactive and being interdependently weaved by our actions and perceptions do not require a God. We answer to ourselves and to each other".

It's good to read that you also think almost the same way. When such thinking becomes evidently mutual there probably also comes, to borrow your words, "understanding, respect, acceptance and a genuine intent and effort to have compassion/empathy for one another."

It's also good to have feedback, for that allows us to evaluate our own patterns of thinking and to reshape them in a desirable way.

Jul 5 2012:
Dear Teja,
It is indeed good to have feedback, and to put some feedback into action would be helpful, if churches have an intention to really work for the good of all people. Those who are controlling people with dogma that is not useful to our global societies, seriously need to listen, evaluate patterns, and reshape them in a desirable way.
Thanks again to you as well...good to connect:>)

Jul 2 2012:
I personally take the stance that no body knows what happens after we die. I will do whatever it takes to make an impact on this earth before I die because "I" give my life purpose. I was raised Catholic but I just didn't understand how a man could stand up there week after week and pretend to KNOW what would happen after death. He doesn't know. Obey, doesn't know. No one knows and we won't know until we die.

I feel like theological debates are a waste of time. Neither side is going to concede. The person of reason or the person of faith. I love religion. I wish very deeply that I could sit there and be like "Yeah, this makes total sense" but I would be fooling myself. I read religious texts because as Obey said men that were thinking about humanity and what they felt was best for it may have created these religions and therefore, they are important to understand! They were philosophers in a sense.

It does give me freedom not to bow to a higher power because I'm able to think freely and rationally. I have really great friends who are very religious. They are some of the most wonderful people to be around but they HATE gay people and want to see abortions made illegal, based solely on the fact that "there god says so."

Am I a good person? I believe so. Do I live a life that is wholesome? I sure as hell try

Jul 2 2012:
Frans kellner,
I really like your response to lorenz question it reminds me of a quote by Bertrand Russell - "To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom". Most people hide behind a fear of questioning their beliefs, they're told (have faith and do not question God) - the fear is that if you question God then you do not have faith and now risk eternity in hell. To conquer this fear is the first step towards knowledge, even if you do decide to still believe in a god. Because at least now you have some sort of reason to your beliefs. One more quote I like that I think fits here is by Thomas Jefferson - "Question with boldness even the existence of God, because if there be one, he most more approve the homage of reason then that of blindfolded fear".

Jul 2 2012:
Thank you Marshal, however for many centuries and on many places still people need to believe to stay participating within their society. For them to question local believes has as a consequence to be banned or to be treated like an outcast.
Information still is out of reach for most people so it will take some time before reason conquers fear on a global scale. Yet, those that dare are heroes for the sake of truth.

Jun 26 2012:
Well most people in America believe in God for the same reason most people don't in China, they were brought up that way. I was brought up to believe in a God, but am now an atheist. I contribute my atheism to education. The more I learned throughout the years, the more my core beliefs were not matching up. I never wanted to not believe in God, it just hapend. Infact, it would be nice to know that their was a God so that I could see all my loved ones when I die,and I wouldn't have to worry about dieing because I would have everlasting life on the other side. However, just because something sounds good does not make it reality. Reality leads me to believe there is no god. My evidence is all the wars on this planet, all the suffering and starving people around the world, and the absence of an omnipotent force. All it would take for an omnipotent force to change these atrocities is the will, and if we would quit looking for this God to end it, I am sure given the will, Mankind could solve thesr problems.

Jun 25 2012:
The older I get, the more comfortable I get with the phrase "I don't know".
Is there a God? I don't know
Why are we here? I don't know
Is there life after death? I don't know

Not knowing the answers to these questions doesn't make me not want to be a good person. I'm not trying to do my best because there may be a higher power to answer to after we die. I'm trying to do my best while I'm here because it's all that I can do. I know that I have the gift of life. I have chosen to try to make the most of it. I think as highly of other's lives as I do my own and try to help people when I can. It's a shared experience for all of us and I try to be a good neighbor locally and globally.

There is no comfort for me not knowing the answers to these questions. However, I do take comfort in the belief that I'm doing the best that I can while I'm here for its own sake.

Jun 22 2012:
There are many different reasons why people are atheists, as many reasons as there are people. Not being an atheist, myself, it would be presumptive of me to comment on the reasons. But from studying the majority of their arguments for atheism, or more specifically, their arguments against religion, one major theme has always presented itself: atheists are mainly antagonistic against religious beliefs and practices, especially those that procliam peace and yet commit murder,that proclaim community and yetcast people out, that procliam a soveriegn god, and then use that excuse to commit all kinds of atrocities.

There are many other logical reasonings as well, but the hypocricy of the hyper religious is the most noticeable target of the ire of the atheist. And the blame must be put on the Christians primarily, in America andthe rest of the Western world, because throughout history to today, we as Christians have done a terrible terrible job of presenting the true message of salvation through Christ. When Christians finally begin to present themselves as true responsible messengers of peace, instead of hedonistic bubllies of the world, then and only then will atheists and others see that perhaps there is some truth to all this dogma we've been spewing for centuries.

I do not label myself, other than as a simple human being, exploring this life adventure, and I totally agree with what you have written in the comment above. I believe that when the majority of people walk their talk, we may have a world in which we can all live in peace and harmony.

Thank you for being you, and sharing the beautiful gift with everyone you interact with:>)

Jun 30 2012:
Thank you so much, Colleen, for these kind words. You wouldn't know this, but they come at just the right time, because I've been having kind of a bad week, but then, you always been on TED a great source of true kindness and light.

But i would not be truly walking my walk if I didn't confess that any of those wonderful attributes comes not from me, but from the Christ whom I serve. I must give Him the credit for any goodness. And whenever I get snarky or testy, well, that's all me!

Jun 30 2012:
Dear Verble,
Maybe I do, on some level "know" the right time!!! I saw your comment when you first wrote it, a week ago, and thought the exact same thing I expressed above. I kept seeing your comment as I scrolled through this thread on several occasions during the week to check out new comments. Every time I passed your comment, I thought..."no...not yet". Yesterday, I thought..."yes...now".

I call it intuition or instinct. I believe there is a universal energy, or collective consciousness which allows us to "know" on many different levels when we are open to it. You choose to believe it is God driven, which I totally respect. Mostly, I respect that we can respect each other regardless (or because of?) some of our underlying beliefs?

Jul 1 2012:
Hi Verble, the hypocrisy doesn't help if you try to know them by their fruits. But it does not disprove god. It just proves people can do bad stuff no matter what they preach, or they can believe stuff that teaches them things that are in part detrimental to human rights. Some of the bad stuff is actually just following the nasty parts of the dogma or scriptures. Parts of the scriptures themselves are often problematic if you value human rights.

Hypocrisy is not the reason I don't believe in any gods or goddesses. When I really looked there just wasn't any evidence, backed up by other non supernatural explanations for the universe, earth, life, human behaviour and culture (including religion) and experience (including religious experience) making more sense.